DVD players and like systems render video content for display on display devices by generating video signals from the video content, which may be stored, for example, on a DVD Compact Disk (“CD”), and forwarding the video signals to a display device. More advanced DVD players also have a USB port through which USB flash drives (“UFDs”) can provide video content.
A standard procedure used by a DVD player to read data stored on UFDs typically conforms to the USB specification and the FAT (“FAT” is an abbreviation of “File Allocation Table”) file system standard (which is defined in the ISO/IEC 9293:1994 standard). According to this procedure, after the DVD player detects the presence of a UFD, for example upon connecting the UFD device to the DVD player, the DVD player requests the file system of the UFD device. Briefly, a file system is a methodology for storing and organizing computer files. A file system includes a set of abstract data files and metadata that are implemented for the storage, hierarchical organization, manipulation, navigation, access, and retrieval of data. The abstract data types and metadata form a “directory tree” through which the computer files (also referred to herein as “data files” or “files” for simplicity) can be accessed, manipulated, and launched. A “directory tree” typically includes a root directory and optional subdirectories. A directory tree is stored in the file system as a “directory file”. The set of metadata and directory files included in a file system is called herein a “file system structure”. A file system, therefore, includes data files and a file system structure that facilitates finding, accessing, manipulating and launching data files. FAT32, which is a file system using 32-bit FAT entries, is an exemplary file system with which UFD and similar devices can be provided.
DVD players use the file system and information pertaining to files stored on the UFD to generate video signals to display a content selection menu from which a user can select a file for playback. The playable files are displayed as a list of items, each item corresponding to a different selectable file. Because DVD players, and content players in general, use different proprietary menu generation mechanisms, the format and arrangement of the content selection menu generated by them is not standardized and highly manufacturer dependant. In addition, listed items are usually displayed to the user of the DVD player in an inflexible and unfriendly way. For example, if a TV series has many episodes, the respective video files corresponding to the episodes are usually given long similar file names (e.g., “Walking_on_the_moon—1”, “Walking_on_the_moon—2”, “Walking_on_the_moon—3”, etc.). Some DVD players are incapable of handling many files and/or complex folder structures.
Although the DVD menu display standard allows graphical depiction of content selection menu and it provides a user interface for selecting them, the standard is limited to MPEG-2, for which reason it cannot be used with downloaded content from portable storage devices or to handle files that are stored on such devices.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention has been made.